Continue to be careful whenever you're seeing new clients.  Don't let your guard down.  Screen new guys all the time, and don't see them if they won't cooperate with the screening process.  

An escort in San Antonio was strangled by her client in his motel room on Friday night.  He was a Finnish guy who was visiting the States. He notifed the police once he had killed her, and waited in the room until they arrived.   He told police that he had always wanted to kill someone, but was too cowardly to attempt to kill a man.  

Apparently he had paid for a four hour session with her.  A driver (escort agency owner?) accompanied her to the motel, but departed with the money once the guy paid them.  The client then spent several hours with her before he killed her.

Here's the story:

'Dating service' work turns deadly  
 
By Tracy Idell Hamilton and Ihosvani Rodriguez  
Express-News Staff Writers  
 
Web Posted : 12/21/2003 12:00 AM  
 
Kim Miller had been unemployed for several months when she began to work for one of the "dating services" touted in the adult sections of classified ads.
The petite blonde just wanted to be able to buy Christmas presents for her family, she told her sister, after confiding in her just two days ago that the escort job involved sex for money.

"I told her to get out of it before I got a phone call at 3 in the morning," said Karen Dramis, weeping.

That 3 a.m. call came Saturday.

Police had found Miller, strangled and drowned, in a hotel bathtub.

They'd been called to the Warren Inn, in the 5000 block of Fredericksburg Road, by a man who called 911 at 11:30 Friday night, claiming to have "just drowned a prostitute."

When officers arrived, guns drawn, they found 40-year-old Finnish citizen Paul Heath sitting calmly on the bed, in nothing but his underwear, smoking a cigarette. He was covered in tattoos: a large ship across his chest, the word "Finland" on his neck, and a dragon on his back.

He calmly directed them to the bathroom.

There, patrol officers found the 30-year-old Miller, almost nude, submerged in a bathtub full of water. They promptly arrested Heath, who did not resist, officers said, and charged him with murder.

"I planned to do this for 30 years," police said he told them. "I don't have nothing. This is a cry for help. I am a coward. I couldn't do this to a male."

Heath was in the Bexar County Jail late Saturday in lieu of $150,000 bond.

After police made their discovery in the bathroom, Heath told them he answered an escort advertisement from a local weekly newspaper. He said a man and woman arrived at his door moments later.

Heath paid the two a total of $800 "for four hours service," the officer wrote in his report. The man then apparently left the area, leaving Miller alone with Heath, police said.

Police tracked the man using phone logs obtained in the hotel's front office.

He has been questioned, police said, but details of the interview weren't disclosed.

Police estimated Miller spent about four hours in Heath's room.

In his statement to police, Heath said he first tried to strangle Miller. He then dumped her in the bathtub to make sure she was dead, according to the police report. An autopsy was conducted; results have not been released.

Handcuffed and placed in a patrol car, Heath continued talking, police reported. Heath asked the officer if he had ever heard of "cabin fever." When the officer answered no, Heath elaborated.

"It is when a person is locked up, hiding for so many years from the rest of the world," Heath responded, according to police. "It was my time. I am death. I killed her. It was either her or me."

On Saturday, police were in contact with authorities in Finland to learn more about Heath's history. According to records, he arrived in the United States through Los Angeles on a tourist visa Nov. 8. It remains unclear how long he had been in San Antonio.

Neighbors of Heath's in the hotel — which rents rooms for $153 a week — said they knew nothing about him. A manager at the hotel refused to comment.

As for Miller, she had been living with her sister while trying to "get back on her feet," said the women's mother, Kathie Miller.

"She was not a prostitute," she said, crying. "She thought she could make some quick money, and it got her killed."

Kim, who had a 7-year-old son, was good with computers and data entry, Kathie Miller said, but she froze up during a recent temp agency typing test.

"She even considered selling Kirby vacuum cleaners," her mother said.

Sitting in a chilly living room, Kathie Miller cried as she explained that she and her husband had removed an ancient heating system from their house recently, but had not replaced it, partly because they were helping Kim, the youngest of their four children.

"My husband was always giving her a little extra money," she said. "We were helping her with her bills. I know she wanted to buy us a new heater."